Approaches for reducing the power consumption in embedded systems

The following paper describes some methods for the reduction of power consumption in embedded systems. They will be used as a basis for the development of a tool that will optimize the power consumption automatically. Keywords - power optimization, power reduction, embedded systems, energy efficiency, Powot tool. Nowadays embedded systems are used in every aspect of our lives - from personal entertainment to healthca re and manufacturing. No matter where used, almost in any case the issue with the power consumption is one of the most daunting tasks to be solved. Portable devices in pa rticular must use optimized software for maximum throughput, as well as minimum consumption. A tradeoff between these two must be found which should extend the discharge period of the battery. Most of the microcontrollers today have ways to red uce their power consumption. For this purpose they use software and hardware methods. It is the software developer's responsibility to take into account the power consumption while writing the program code. Thus the final results may vary. On the other hand the hardw are is fixed and the power reduction is more determined. T he overall optimization is dictated by the application . A tool for automatic code optimization can be devel oped, so that the final program is more energy-efficient. This way the developer can write a program without observing any rules for power savings and then use this tool to automatically modify the code.